Birthday Special: KYA BADE BAAP KA BETA HONA GUNAH HAI

I wonder whether Abhishek Bachchan is as concerned about himself and his career as people outside are - Ali Peter John

There are some very negative forces to believe that all is not well from him and it is almost the beginning of the end for him.

There are others who feel that he would have been bowled out ten years ago, if he was not a son of Amitabh Bachchan and Jaya Bachchan.

There are others who believe he could continue playing second fiddle to other bigger heroes like he had been doing in recent years.

There are astrologers and soothsayers who are not willing to predict a very bright future for him and there are still others who believe that he should have been in an executive in some big firms or own a firm of his own.

I have been hearing all this talk about him for quite some time now. But this piece has been inspired by a learned astrologers who called me from nowhere, only to tell me that it was high time that Abhishek changed his tracks or a time would come when he would meet with a crash in his career from which he would find it difficult to recover.

The unknown and invisible man was so anti-Abhishek that he even had the gall to say that Abhishek looked more like the son of Raj Babbar and that is why whoever did the casting of “Banti Aur Babli" cast him as the son of Raj Babbar in the film.

The man seemed to have woken up from the wrong side of his bed or had a fight with his wife early in the morning and found my number from someone who had the same wives like him about everything in life and was still predicting things about Amitabh, Anupam Kher, Abhishek and some others.....

I felt like saying a lot of things to him about Abhishek, but I felt it would be a waste of words which I could gladly use for some other purpose or to find meaning in the lives of those who have been living a totally meaningless life.

And so I am writing what I couldn't tell that man and it will all be about what I have seen and have tried to know about Abhishek.

I must say that I had seen Abhishek when he was a toddler at ‘Prateeksha' and as a little boy accompanying his father to some shootings, like the shooting of “Mahaan"(Amitabh had a triple role in the film) in Kathmandu.

I then saw him as a teenager in shorts working as a junior production controller during the shooting of “Major Sahab", an ABCL film directed by Tinnu Anand, my friend who always reminds me of how he was to play the role Amitabh played in “Saat Hindustani".

Then there was a break for me as an observer of Abhishek till he came back as a hero in a film which was best forgotten and that is perhaps the reason why it is not even mentioned in any of the internet platforms like Google, Wikipedia and some others. He is our mentioned as a star who made his debut in J.P Dutt's “Refugee".

That was some time in 2000 and if you ask me, any actor who has done more than fifty films during the last nineteen years, if he has been a producer of the filmmaking company called AB Corp., if he has been the brand ambassador and endorsed so many ideas, products and projects and if he has been the owner of a football team and a kabbadi team which are running successfully, he must certainly be a man worth admiring.

So, what if some of his first ten or eleven films were not appreciated and did not even do well at the box-office?

It must be said to Abhishek's credit that he has tried out his talent as an actor in more genres of films than any other actor.

From “Refugee" to “Umrao Jaan" and “Happy New Year" and from the “Dhoom" franchise to “Guru", “Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna" and “Drona", he has done it all and his work has been appreciated all the way.

Some three years ago, he was the hero of a film called “All Is Well" and I could hear some of his worst critics hailing him as an actor and letting people know that the film marked a new beginning for Abhishek, the actor.

But, nothing was happening till he played a very good role in Anurag Kashyap's “Manmarziyaan" which was another landmark in his career.

It must be noted that in between doing all his fifty films, he also produced a very different kind of film called “Paa" with his real life pa as the lead character and with him and Vidya Balan playing his pa's parents.

It must have been a difficult decision to take to make a film like “Pa", but Abhishek, the producer went all the way to make the film the way the maker R. Balki wanted to make it and his decision seemed to pay off in a big way and in many ways.

He also was busy as a brand ambassador who endorsed some of the most prestigious products and new inventions.

He was also a key role player in the campaign to bring about drug awareness and other causes and he was a part of a major tour of different countries in which he had some of the big stars from Mumbai who were a part of the tour which was a tour for a worthy cause.

I feel, I must also make a brief mention about his personal life. He was engaged to Karishma Kapoor and it was his pa who made an official announcement of the engagement on his sixteith birthday which was celebrated in a grand way and with the release of a coffee table book written by Khaled Mohammed and brought out by Jaya Bachchan.

The engagement however was called off for reasons which are still very personal.

It was during the shooting of “Dhoom" that he met and fell in love with the former Miss World, Aishwarya Rai who he married at a very private ceremony held at ‘Prateeksha' and there was bitterness among some of the admirers and friends of the Bachchan family who were not invited to the ceremony. Abhishek and Aishwarya have a daughter named Aaradhya.

And it gives myself great pleasure to know that Abhishek is all set to stage a striking fightback.

He has just completed shooting for Anurag Kashyap's “Ludo", the details of which are being kept a secret till now.

He will soon start shooting for the sequel of the film which was successful in the original.

He is to play the coveted role of the poet, Sahir Ludhianvi on a biopic which is expected to be directed by Sanjay Leela Bhansali or one of his senior associates.

And the actor who had played the role of what was supposed to be an inspiration from the life of the buisness tycoon Dhirubhai Ambani.

And I have heard (I like hearing good things of people who are good in their professions and also as people) that he may play a character loosely based on the scamster of the nineties, Harshad Mehta.

There are many other tempting offers, but at forty-four, Abhishek, I think is sensible enough to make the right choices when it comes to the roles he will do in and for the future.

For the time being, all this is more than enough for Abhishek to give his detractors a fitting reply. And I hope and know that he will succeed. Afterall, he is the grandson of Dr Harivanshrai Bachchan, and the son of Amitabh Bachchan and Jaya Bachchan.

AUR EK KAHANI USKE MAHAN BAAP KI

He had just kicked himself to stardom with “Zanjeer" after a long strings of flops to his name and was declared a superstar, replacing Rajesh Khanna, the ruling superstar till then.

He was at the airport or at some place where buisness was talked about and done.

A man who seemed to be like a Gujarati buisnessman went up to him and said he had seen “Zanjeer" and had become a crazy fan of his.

Amitabh who was tasting the fruits of success for the first time thanked the man profusely. The man had not finished.

He asked Amitabh to do him a favour. He said a buisnessman from the South to who he owed money would come to meet him and he wanted Amitabh to show the man from Madras that he was a friend or was on close terms with the new superstar.

Amitabh is said to have done what the Gujarati buisnessman asked him to do and when he showed him how he was very close to him, the Gujarati buisnessman took him by surprise by saying in Gujarati,“not now, not now, meet me after twenty minutes".

That one incident taught Amitabh a lesson which he was not going to forget, a lesson that showed him how some people could even sell unknown to them, but the well-known and famous faces.